


Awkward Jocks

by NarutoDays (DAYS8)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Sports, American Football, Basketball, F/M, Historical, Humor, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-08-24 10:23:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16638137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DAYS8/pseuds/NarutoDays
Summary: She knows that if he were to ever ask her out, she would accept in a heartbeat.After all, he's the star quarterback and basketball player.  Plus, she's liked him since...forever.But when her home phone rings, and he's on the other line, she hangs up.





	1. Hard to Get

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is based off a true love story of a friend.  
> Please enjoy the NaruHina :)

Shrieks of laughter sound over the roar and creak of carnival machinery.  The sun beats down on the park, and she wipes a bead of perspiration from her forehead as they make their way across the grass, avoiding the bare patches of dust and dirt.

“Oooh!  Let’s go on the Zipper next!”  Sakura points to the tall, imposing machine.  

Her eyes widen at the ride where passengers teeter precariously, rocking back and forth, upside down, clinging to the bars.  It looks like she’ll come off it dizzy and sick. “Okay!”

Her childhood friend smiles excitedly, and the two rush to the line.  

The bluenette ties her long hair up into a ponytail as they wait.  When she’s not at practice, she likes to wear her hair down, but it’s just too hot today.  

The Zipper whirs to life again, spinning its screaming occupants in circles.  

She shares a nervous smile with Sakura before letting her attention drift over to watch the rest of the school carnival.

Just across the way, a large tent houses games, like the dime toss, darts, and Pepsi ring toss.  Stuffed animals that aren’t exactly cute hang enticingly from the signs as crowds of teens try their luck.  Girls affectionately hug the prizes their boyfriends won for them.

A boy with golden hair and just the most wonderfully lean build emerges from the tent, heading toward their line.  With a girl, a lanky brunette, hanging on his arm.

The smile she didn’t realize she was wearing until just now falters a bit.

“Hey, Naruto!!  NARUTO! HEYY! NARUTO!!”  Sakura yells.

She winces at her friend’s amazing lung capacity.  She glances at Sakura, a part of her wishing that she wouldn’t call him over (with that girl).

She looks back to see if he’s coming over.  Even with the noise, there’s absolutely no way he didn’t hear her.

But suddenly he’s toting that girl in the opposite direction.

“What the hell?!  I know he saw us!” Sakura huffs.

A part of her is relieved.  A part of her that clings onto this impossible crush is disappointed.  The last time she saw him was briefly at the football game three weeks ago. They didn’t talk, except for an exchange of greetings.  The usual, nothing more, nothing less. But with her best friend dating his best friend since intermediate school, they see each other often enough, despite attending rival high schools, for her to carry on with this infatuation.

She hardly even knows him.  Well, correction, he hardly even knows her.  She’s noticed him since elementary school. She’s loved him just as long.

Along with all the other girls.  

She was 9 when she first saw him.  The bus was taking her basketball team to the neighboring school’s gym for a tournament.  They made a pit stop to pick up another team that was stranded due to engine problems. She remembers it clearly.  Peering out the window and seeing _him._  A shining smile, tan skin, a confident gait as he ribbed with his teammates.  He was _cute_.  Her eyes followed him as they got on their bus.

And she couldn’t stop watching him.  He was amazing. The way he ran across the court with smooth strides, the way he sharply juked his opponents, the way he handled the ball.  

She and her teammates were swooning.  

He never once looked their way.

His obliviousness didn’t deter her.  When she learned he had club football practice in the park next to her school, she watched him everyday from the basketball court as she shot hoops.  Standing from a distance, she noted the car he got into, its color, brand, the side of the car he sits in. On the road, she looked for his family’s car, wondering if maybe he was in the lane beside her.  

She adored him.

It could be argued that she stalked him.

Her crush was so obvious throughout elementary and intermediate school, there isn’t a person who knows her who doesn’t know about her feelings.

But she’s been doing her very best to get over him.  Especially now. When he obviously has a girlfriend. After all, she doesn’t stand a chance.  He’s the star quarterback and basketball player of Konoha High School. And she’s just some distant girl attending the neighboring Hi no Tera High School.

 

So she knows it’s a really sick prank when she answers the house phone the next afternoon.

“Hello, can I speak to Hinata?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Naruto.”

“...”  Well, that’s just not possible.  “Okay, really funny,” she says, deadpan.  She hangs up. She’s not falling for that.  All of her friends and cousins know that it’s her life dream for him to call her and ask her out.

But it gets worse.  Twenty minutes later, the phone rings again.

“Hello?”

“Hello?  Hinata? This is Naruto.”

So she hangs up.  

Ten minutes later, the phone rings again.

“Hello?”

“Hinata, this is Naruto.”

She hangs up.  But somehow this prank caller is really not getting the picture.  Because he calls again.  And again.  And again.

“Hello?”  She tries to keep the annoyance out of her voice in case it’s actually someone else.

“Hinata-”

The voice is different, but the caller knows she’s on the other end.  “Okay, please stop-”

“No, wait, don’t hang up!”

“Just stop-”

“Hinata!  This is Sasuke.”

She’s upset.  He should know better than to do this to her.  “Sasuke-kun, what are you doing?  It's not funny.”

“That really was Naruto.”

She doesn’t believe him.  At all. “Okay, alright.” Her tone conveys her disbelief.

“...Can you bring Sakura over to Konoha High School?”

She hesitates in doing him this favor.  She purses her lips and rolls her eyes. But she’s too nice to say no.  Like her, Sakura attends Hi no Tera High School and hardly ever gets to see her boyfriend.  And she’s the only one with a car. She’s basically responsible for how long their relationship has lasted.  She keeps herself from sighing her aggravation. “Okay.”

“Thank you, Hinata.”

 

When she and Sakura pull up to Konoha High School, Sasuke and Naruto are sitting on the school field’s wall.  They look a little tired. Football practice apparently just ended.

Her brow furrows at seeing the golden boy here.  He is actually here with Sasuke. So did he actually call her all of those times?  Doubt and hope shut her up, and she can’t hardly say a word as Sakura prances up to Sasuke.  

The two lovebirds start talking about everything, somehow excluding her and Naruto.

She stands awkwardly next to her longtime crush, waiting for him to say something.  Maybe a “hi” or “hello.” She gathers her courage to look at him, which in itself, feels like a huge feat.  He’s gorgeous--blue eyes, tousled hair, broad shoulders, defined muscles.

But he says nothing.  He’s looking at her unblinkingly and then averts his gaze toward Sakura.  

Not that she should have expected anything.  She grabs her basketball from her car and heads to the court.  Sakura and Sasuke don’t notice or care.

She starts shooting hoops.

She’s on her fifth basket when he comes onto the court.  Her stomach knots in nerves, and still, he says nothing. Just shifts his weight near the fence and watches her shoot a 2-pointer.    

She dribbles the ball a couple of times and shoots again.  She obviously glances over at him.

He’s watching her, and his head tilts a bit, seeing that she’s giving him some attention.  

Not knowing what else to do, she passes him the ball.

He dribbles it a couple of times and then shoots.  The ball makes that satisfying  _swish_ sound in the net.  And of course, his form is perfect.  He looks her in the eye and passes the ball back to her.

They switch off, bouncing the ball between them, taking shots at the basket until Sakura and Sasuke are ready to leave.

 

It’s not until later that night, the house phone rings again.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Hinata?”

“Yes?”

“This is Naruto.”

It really is his voice.  Slightly husky and warm. Incredibly attractive.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

She realizes he’s referring to that afternoon.  And today just keeps getting stranger and stranger.  “Well um...why didn’t you say anything?”  She’s honestly wondering.  

“I...didn't say anything because you didn't say anything...”

She was supposed to talk first?  Oh.  "Well...I didn't say anything because you didn't say anything..."

"..."

She meets his silence with silence.

“Why did you keep hanging up on me?”

Can she tell him that she didn’t think it could possibly be him?  After all, he has a girlfriend. “Well...you have a girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Yesterday, you were walking around with a girl.”  She doesn’t know why she has to remind him.

“Oh...her?...She’s not my girlfriend.”

She doesn’t know why she has to explain this to him.  “You were holding hands.”

“Ah, naah, she’s not my girlfriend.”

This is all too good to be true because how can this possibly be true.  Her fingers tangle with the phone’s spiral cord in anticipation.

“...You wanna go out to the movies with me?”

“Okay.”  Her response is a little too automatic.  But she doesn’t have it in her to care because the hope is building up inside her, and it’s not until after the call is over that she freaks out in happiness.

 

“He was nice.  It was really fun,” she recaps, remembering how he smiled at her when they met the night before at the theater.  How he opened the door for her. How they sat next to each other in the dark room. How they talked about the movie afterwards.  How he asked her out to the beach for next time.

They’re sitting around at Sakura’s house because her best friend just _had_ to know how their first date went.

Sakura’s shaking her head, silently giggling.  “Sasuke-kun, tell her what you told me.” Sakura’s expression is one of barely-contained mirth.

The raven-haired boy smirks.  “You know the day he kept calling you and you kept on hanging up?”

“Um, yes?”

“We were at football practice.”

She nods, remembering how they met up with them afterwards.

Sasuke waits for a second to see if she catches on to whatever he’s trying to imply.

She looks at him blankly.

Sasuke nods and repeats, “We were at football practice.”

She still doesn’t get it.

“Every time our coach gave us a water break, he ran to the payphone to call you.”

Realization crosses her mind.  The closest payphone to the Konoha football field is across the baseball field and basketball courts, then on the other side of the administration building, next to the street.

Sakura is shaking with silent laughter.

“I asked him how it went when he came running back, but he said that you hung up on him.  So the next break comes, he runs to his bag, gets out his coins, runs to the payphone, comes running back, he’s shaking his head, and practice is starting again.  And the next break comes, he does it again--runs to his bag, runs to the payphone, runs back, said you hung up on him. And I’m wondering what the idiot’s doing wrong.  So eventually he was asking me for quarters, and that’s when I went with him.”

The pinkette finally lets out her cackles of amusement.

He ran back and forth during their _water breaks_ to the _payphone_ just to call _her._  And she hung up on him.  The star quarterback and basketball player.  Her longtime crush.  Every single time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> X)  
> Thank you for reading!


	2. Easygoing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto is a simple-minded person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, based on a friend's true love story :)  
> Rating: T

“Hey, Dad, why’d you marry Mom?”

Naruto turns his attention from the TV show listings to his lanky, teenage son.  “Why did I marry your mom?” he repeats.

“Yeah.  I have to know for my family history paper.  I already asked Mom about how you guys met, but I need your perspective, too.”

He sees Hinata come out from the kitchen, with a curious smile.  Even at 37, she’s still beautiful.

It’s not a hard question.  He’s always known why.  “Well, she was easy.”

Boruto’s eyes widen.  He turns around.  “MOM!” he shouts in shocked disbelief.  

Naruto scrunches his brows in confusion, and finds that his wife is looking back at him in concern.  

She’s looking between him and their son shaking her head slightly with a strange frown.

What did he say?... _oh_ …  “Boruto, that’s NOT what I meant!  That’s not what I meant!”  He’s waving his hands as if it can erase whatever picture his earlier words conjured.  “She had a car, so, y’know-”

“You married Mom 'cause she had a car?!” Boruto interrupts, an incredulous expression on his face.

“NO!  No!  I’m trying to say that we could go out on a lot of dates, so dating her was easy!  And your mom was an easy person-”

“MOM!” Boruto shouts again.

His wife leaves the room, hands over her face.

 _Oh, crap_.  

He'll have a lot of explaining to do...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) Thank you for reading!


	3. Tough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's a fighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, based off a true love story of a friend.
> 
> I'll preface this chapter with some background:  
> The neighborhood is rough.  
> Story takes place in the 90s.
> 
> Please enjoy the Naruhina!

One thing Hinata knows for sure: dating Naruto wasn’t always easy.

Sure, she had a car, so they could meet up often.  They could go to the beach every weekend, order takeout from the drive-inn, watch ESPN at each other’s houses, and catch a movie here and there without worry.  She could support him at every football and basketball game.

She could endure all the ridicule from the cheerleaders.

  


“Ew, do you smell that?”

“Ugh, _something_ stinks.”

“Oh my gosh, ew, it’s Ugly walking past.”

The catty jeering doesn’t really bother her.  Like, yes, they bother her, but she isn’t going to let them _bother_ her.  After all, he chose to date _her_ , not them.  And it’s really only at basketball games when the bleachers are so close to the cheerleaders, and she has no choice to walk past them, that they so vocally taunt her.

She leads her parents, who are unaware of the cheerleaders’ scorn, to sit next to his family.  The exuberant and for-real-the-spirit-of-love Kushina smiles widely at her, pulling her into an exchange of cheek kisses.  Kushina does the same with her mother and father.  Minato and her father give each other firm handshakes, then he gives a quick exchange of cheek kisses with her mother.  Their families are pretty close.  Take that, cheerleaders.

The game starts, and Kushina is already cheering like there are only seconds left on the clock.  

“C’mon, baby, go!!  GO!  YEAH!!” Kushina shouts.

Or sometimes it’s-

“It’s alright, baby, you get ‘em next time!!” the scarlet-haired mother yells.

Whether it’s comfort, encouragements, celebratory cries, or just plain old cheering, no matter how loud Hinata is, Kushina is louder.

It’s nice.  She kind of aspires to be like her when she grows up.

Even if she’s not entirely sure he can even hear her over the echoing in the gym, Hinata smiles and cheers until her cheeks hurt.  Watching him play is always thrilling.  She loves watching how he strides down the court.  How he’s able to command the ball and work with his teammates.  How he does this kind of bouncing skip when he scores or gives a blinding grin and high-five to a teammate who makes a basket.  Even when he puts his hands on his knees during a moment of downtime, he’s cute.  

She totally loves him.  

So do the cheerleaders.  They call his name in annoying voices, trying to catch his attention with a shake of their pom poms.  

Hinata notes that he doesn’t pay any attention to them, to her relief.  Even in their short red skirts and perfectly made-up faces, he doesn’t give them the time of day.  His focus stays on his team and the game.  So she resolves herself to pay them no mind, either.

When halftime is called, she goes outside with her father for refreshments.  Unlike Naruto’s parents, her parents are not so loud, not so conversational.  She and her father sit peacefully at a table to drink soda and eat burgers.

More and more people stream out of the gym, signaling the end of the halftime show.  It’s not long before the cheerleaders make their dreaded appearance.  They settle at a table near hers, and already, they’re at it.

“Ugh, ew, you smell that?”

“Oh, yeah, oh my gosh, it’s so gross.”

Steadily, the comments get more and more direct.

“She’s so ugly and weird-looking, too.”

“I know, right?  Like she’s not even cute.”

“If I were her, I’d at least try to dress up or put makeup on.  It’s like she doesn’t know how.”

“I know, oh my gosh, like is she even a girl?”

“Oh my gosh!  That’s too funny!”

They laugh.

“He’s too cool for her.”

“They probably won’t last, I mean, look at her.”

“They don’t look good together at all, right?”

“No, they’re _terrible_ together.”

Her father’s expression doesn’t reveal much.  He can hear them, too, though.  “Are they talking about you?” he questions quietly.

Hinata looks at her father, her eyes conveying what she doesn’t need to say.

Her father’s face remains impassive, but Hinata knows he doesn’t like it.

Meanwhile, somehow, the cheerleaders are still talking about her.

“Should I...you know…” she asks for permission.

He gives her a noncommittal nod.  “You go do you what you need to do, Hinata.  I won’t tell your mother.”  Her mother is something of a pacifist.  Her father is a fighter, the kind of storm you don’t see coming until it’s too late.  She’s a mix of both of them.

They finish their food in relative silence and clean up.

“I’ll be inside,” her father says.  He leaves her, and Hinata knows it’s so that his presence doesn’t take away any of her thunder.

She might not do her hair, her face, her clothes all cute and pretty.  Really, she doesn’t care about any of that.  They can talk about her, big deal, so what.  She’s tough.

But she doesn’t like them talking about her relationship like it’s nothing.  She puts effort into it where it counts.  She supports him, and he supports her.  In the end, that’s what matters, and so far, she doesn’t see their relationship ending any time soon.  She’ll do what it takes to protect their relationship.

Maybe it’s about time they realized that, too.

She heads over to their table, and the cheerleaders get really quiet, really fast.

“You girls have something to say to me?”

“What?  No,” one replies with an innocent look.

“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” another continues.  

They make faces like they’re minding their own business.

“Everything that you all were saying, I heard it.  You want to talk about me, then say it.  I’m right here.”  

They act like if they stay quiet, maybe she’ll go away.

Hinata chooses her next words carefully.  She nods as if she can see right through them, drawing on her battle attitude that she usually only exhibits when she’s on the court.  “You girls are all talk.  If you want to pick a fight with me…”  She makes sure her stance is as imposing as it can be.  “...then I’m ready when you are.”  She can take them on.  Her denims and sneakers will work just fine.

The cheerleaders avert their gazes, not daring to make eye contact.  

Hinata looks at each of them.  “Hm.  That’s what I thought.”  She turns around, and there isn’t a peep from any of them.

The concession stand lady claps loudly in approval.  “That’s right, honey girl, you tell ‘em!”

Hinata can’t help smiling a little at the lady, glad that she was able to stand up for herself and her relationship, and someone was there to bear witness to it.

After that, the cheerleaders stop ridiculing her.  

One even starts acting like her friend, coming up and saying “hi” to her whenever they see each other around.  Maybe she was impressed?  It’s weird but not unwelcome.

Even at the most recent high school reunion, that former cheerleader greets her like they were best friends.

“Hello, Hinata!  You look great!  How are you and Naruto?  How are your kids?  Oh, wow, they're getting so big!”  

It’s so much gushing, Hinata starts believing that they were friends, too.

 

One thing Hinata knows for sure: dating Naruto wasn’t always easy, but it was definitely worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) Thank you for reading!


End file.
